He nodded, and I gave Mr. Braddock one more glance, no energy left to argue or obstinately plant myself down by his side. This was Miss Lodge’s home. She was already busy asking Cushing for more supplies and preparing for the rest of the night. Mr. Kent turned my exhausted body away and led me downstairs.
The dismal trip back to the Kents’ felt like it took hours as Mr. Kent and I rolled through black, vacant streets, our silence thicker than the London fog. I hardly knew what to say to him, and he didn’t press me with questions. My lips managed a thankyou and a promise to explain everything the next morning. He nodded and helped me to the house, where Tuffins politely greeted me as if I weren’t a horrible mess and had a maid draw me a bath.
In the warm water, I gazed at my limbs as if they belonged to someone else. If my powers weren’t working, there should have been at least a bruise or a scrape from my fall out of the carriage. But my skin was unbroken, unblemished. I tried to think, to analyze the evening’s events, but my brain refused to process anything. I was numb, detached, empty. The last thing I remembered, as my head finally hit the pillow, was making a final prayer for Mr. Braddock’s recovery. For my strange abilities to somehow do their work.
It was a good sign that the Lodges hadn’t donned their mourning weeds the next morning when they welcomed me into their drawing room, but they weren’t exactly the portrait of happiness, either. They both had expressions of equal parts trepidation and optimism, a fear of hoping too much.
“Miss Wyndham, it is good to see you safe and sound,” Mr. Lodge said. “Is the rest of your party well?”
As I took a seat on a settee, I settled on a vague enough answer. “Yes . . . a bit shaken up, perhaps, but no harm came to them.”
“Something must be done about these drunk ruffians,” Mr. Lodge declared. “It’s a shame that you cannot even attend the opera without worrying about an unprovoked attack. You must be able to identi—”
Mrs. Lodge rested her hand on her husband’s. “Dear, I am certain Miss Wyndham does not want to revisit the event so soon. For now, we must count ourselves fortunate it was not worse.”
“Thanks to Mr. Braddock’s bravery,” I added. Did this mean he was awake? He must have provided the Lodges this story. “How is he right now?”
The Lodges exchanged a brief glance. “He left early this morning.”
What? He was close to death just hours ago. “How could he— did Miss Lodge not stop him?” I asked.
“She was watching over him but started to feel rather unwell herself. That is why Sebastian left. He did not wish to slow her own recovery.”
“Terrible, terrible business,” Mr. Lodge concluded, his weary, kind face drained of all color.
A silence settled over the room. I should have anticipated this. Both of them cared too much for the other’s health, to the detriment of their own. Had Miss Lodge’s illness returned? Had I even cured it in the first place, as Mr. Braddock claimed? My fully healed body gave me some hope, but I dreaded the thought of failing Miss Lodge. I had to be sure.
“Is Miss Lodge still resting upstairs? May I see her?” I asked.
From the way both their faces lit up, I could tell I’d made the right decision, even though the same doubt and dread (which seemed to accompany every visit here) seeped into my stomach as I followed Cushing upstairs to the bedroom.
“Miss Lodge?” he asked with a light knock.
No response.
“Miss—”
“No need to wake her,” I whispered to Cushing. “I just want to see her condition.”
He nodded and left me alone in the dim bedroom. This would be better anyway. With her asleep, I wouldn’t have to flounder about trying to explain my lack of medicines.
Quietly, I approached Miss Lodge, planted myself in a bedside wicker chair, and attempted a diagnosis. Her breathing was heavy and labored, her forehead burned from a fever, and her nightstand held a handkerchief spotted with blood. This wasn’t the Addison’s disease that I last saw. Something else ailed her, and it looked very much like the consumption she had survived before. My goodness, was she the unluckiest girl in all of London?
I waited stupidly, hoping for a sudden, newfound understanding of my powers. No such luck. There was no reasonable explanation. Sometimes my healing worked. Sometimes it didn’t. There was nothing to do but hope this would fall into the first category.